Sunday, September 27, 2020

One Saturday in the fall

Okey-dokey, class, one last time: Why does Professor Blob regard Saturdays in the fall to be much, much more fun than Sundays in the fall?

Because a mad scientist named Mike Leach, who may or may not be completely crazy, can take Mississippi State into Baton Rouge and introduce to the SEC his sacrilegious notions about football by knocking off defending national champion LSU.

Because the Nos. 3 and 6 teams in the nation can lose on the same day, and the No. 8 team can almost lose, and the No. 4 team has to change quarterbacks on account of it was losing to unranked Arkansas.

Because heartbreak looks like Texas Tech leading the aforementioned No. 8 team, Texas, by 15 points with 3:40 to play, only to have Texas QB Sam Ehinger channel Texas quarterbacking legend James Street to pull it out for Texas in overtime.

In order words: Professor Blob regards Saturdays in the fall to be much more fun than Sundays because the empirical evidence says so.

After all, you're not gonna see the mix of heroics and pain in a Dolphins-Jets clash like you saw in Lubbock, Texas, yesterday, where it was 100 degrees and Tech looked like a lock after the splendidly named SaRodorick Thompson raced 75 yards to Six City with 3:40 left.

That made it 56-41 and Texas was taking on water in alarming fashion, but it still had Ehinger. He started throwing and Joshua Moore and Brennan Eagles started catching, and Texas recovered an onside kick in there somewhere. And the Horns hooked 'em.

That was also about the same time No. 3 Oklahoma was blowing a three-touchdown lead in Norman and losing to Kansas State, 38-35. This despite the dazzlement of OU freshman Spencer Rattler, who threw for 387 yards and four touchdowns and was at times as awesome as his name, which is exactly the sort of name a big-deal college quarterback ought to have.

If he was named John Smith you wouldn't have been nearly as impressed. Trust me on this.

Trust me, too, that Mike Leach is the most interesting possibly deranged individual in college football. He has this weird pirate fetish, and he's prone to bizarre soliloquies at times, and he plays this loony offense that throws the football a promiscuous amount of the time.  And yesterday he took it into Baton Rouge and beat LSU with it.

Stacked up 44 points, Leach's boys did, which might be about average for Mississippi State this year. The Bulldogs quarterback, a grad transfer with the suitably quarterback-y name of  K.J. Costello, threw the ball 60 times and shattered the SEC record for passing yards right out of the chute. Threw for 623 yards and five touchdowns and left the LSUs gasping for air. 

Remember when people said you can only do that in Big 12, where defense is just a rumor?

Well. Hmm. Costello threw for five touchdowns, and Florida quarterback Kyle Trask threw for six in a win at Ole Miss in which the teams combined for 86 points, and I guess the SEC is just the Big 12 with a snootier rep now.

Of course, it now also has Mike Leach.

And can the Dolphins or Jets say that?

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